Social center

Social Centers are community spaces. They are buildings which are used for a range of disparate activities, which can be linked only by virtue of being not-for-profit. They might be organizing centers for local activities or they might provide support networks for minority groups such as prisoners and refugees. Often they provide a base for initiatives such as cafes, free shops, public computer labs, graffiti murals, legal collectives and free housing for travellers. The services are determined by both the needs of the community in which the social center is based and the skills which the participants have to offer. Social centres tend to be in large buildings and thus can host activist meetings, concerts, bookshops, dance performances and art exhibitions. Social centres are common in many European cities, sometimes in squats, sometimes in rented buildings.

Free spaces

Social centres provide a place to socialise in a bar, cafe or music venue. They also provide access to alternative, hard to access information through projects such as libraries, infoshops, film nights and talks.

Other activities organised might include events, meetings, exhibitions, classes and workshops on a range of topics.

The projects are run on an entirely voluntary basis by the people involved, who are neither charity workers nor social workers. The projects are run in the spirit of co-operation, solidarity and mutual aid. Other activities organised include events, meetings, exhibitions, classes and workshops on a range of topics. Whilst every individual case is different, most centres are run on the basis of non-hierarchical consensus decision-making. Politically most centres lean to the left, being anarchist, autonomist or communist in viewpoint. Centres tend to adopt an ethical vegan philosophy, whilst accepting that individuals involved may have differing personal lifestyles.

"Social centres are abandoned buildings - warehouses, factories, military forts, schools - that have been occupied by squatters and transformed into cultural and political hubs, explicitly free from both the market, and from state control... Though it may be hard to tell at first, the social centres aren't ghettos, they are windows — not only into another way to live, disengaged from the state, but also into a new politics of engagement. And yes, it's something maybe beautiful." (Klein, 2001).

Different from Community Centres

Social Centres are distinguished from Community centers in the particular relationship social centres have toward the state and governmental institutions. While "community centre" is a term used to describe any center of "public" activity, occasionally sanctioned by the state or private interests such as a corporation, social centres are characterized by their quasi-legal and sometimes illegal existence, their direct subsistence on the community that supports it and their political vision vis-a-vis the state.

Italy

The social centre concept has taken root most successfully in Italy, beginning in the 1970s. Large factories and even abandoned military barracks have been "appropriated" for use as social centers. There are today dozens of social centers in Italy, often denoted by the initials CSOA (Centro Sociale Occupato Autogestito). Examples include, Pedro in Padova, Spartaco in Ravenna, Officina 99 in Naples and Forte Prenestino, Corto Circuito and Villagio Globale in Rome and Leoncavallo in Milan.

The historic relationship between the Italian social centers and the Autonomia movement (specifically Lotta Continua) has been described briefly in "Storming Heaven, Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomous Marxism", by Steve Wright.

Social centres in Italy continue to be centres of political / social dissent. Notably the Tute Bianche and Ya Basta Association developed directly out of the social center movement, and many social forums take place in social centers. They are also used for hacklabs, activist copyleft centers (for example, LOA Hacklab in Milan).

The Netherlands

Since the Sixties there is a long and continuous tradition of squatted social centres in the Netherlands, particularly in the capital, Amsterdam.

In Leiden the Eurodusnie Collective provide a service to the community by running a free shop and a cafe/bar.

In Den Haag there was the De Blauwe Aanslag, which was used for 23 years.

In Amsterdam, the ASCII centre has been providing free internet to all its 'customers' since 1997 and is now mutating into a hacklab. The Overtoom301 squat has a cafe, a non-profit printshop and a music venue. Vrankrijk is open seven days a week, hosting a range of projects including a "kraakspreekuur" (squatters' advice hour), a bar, a queer night and benefit events. The Occii is a busy music venue and children's theatre.

In Rotterdam, the Poortgebouw hosts a twice weekly cafe on Wednesdays and Sundays.

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In Barcelona, there is a tight network of squatted social centres which publishes a weekly newspaper InfoUsurpa detailing activities and news. The paper is fly-posted on the doors of the squats themselves. As a result of the relaxed attitude of shop-owners towards dumpster diving there are free food cafes every night, often vegan. Other squats offer free music or free internet. The Eskalera Karakola is a feminist social center in Madrid many or most of towns. The "Ayuntamiento" and "Comunidad" are many Social center and Public Libraries in all Districts.

The United Kingdom

The UK Social Centre Network aims to link up "the growing number of autonomous spaces to share resources, ideas and information" [http://www.londonarc.org/social_centre_network.html] . This network draws a very clear distinction between the many autonomous social centres around the country on one side and the state or large NGO-sponsored community centres on the other. Despite there being a tradition of large squats, the recent upsurge in social centres has come about in the last five years. Antecedents of the social center concept include projects such as the Roseberry Avenue Autonomy Centre, the Centro Iberico and the Wapping Autonomy Centre.

In London, places include the RampART social centre (currently under threat), the London Action Resource Centre, the Freedom Club and the [http://www.56a.org.uk/ 56a Crampton Street] infoshop. 'The Square' was active during 2006 and is now closed [ [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/06/343297.html UK Indymedia - Eviction Resistance at The Square ] ] . On January 20 2007, a new social centre opened in London, in the old Vortex Jazz Club on Stoke Newington Church Street. It continued the ideals of the free space project, and ran a cafe, cinema nights and benefits. It was evicted in March 2007. [ [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/364596.html UK Indymedia - The Vortex Occupied Social Centre Evicted ] ] A new space opened up in Camberwell in March 2007 and was evicted in August. [ [http://www.56a.org.uk/warham.html Camberwell Squat Centre ] ]

Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, there are centres in Oxford (the [http://theoarc.org.uk/ OARC] ), Leeds (the [http://www.thecommonplace.org.uk/ Common Place] ) , Bristol ( [http://www.kebelecoop.org/ Kebele] ), Nottingham (Sumac Centre), Bradford (the [http://www.1in12.com/ 1in12] ), Manchester (the [http://basementmanchester.org.uk Basement] ), Brighton (the Cowley Club), Birmingham (the [http://www.brumsc.org.uk/ Cottage of Content Social Centre] ), Cardiff ( [http://thepad.wordpress.com The PAD] ), Liverpool ( [http://www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org Next To Nowhere] ) and Edinburgh (The Forest). Belfast's social centre, Giros, has now closed as has Sheffield's Matilda.

Many social centres are squats, and as such have a very short life span.

References

Notes

* Klein, N. "Fences and Windows", Picador USA , 2001 ISBN 0-312-30799-3.
* [http://www.londonarc.org/social_centre_network.html "The Social Centre Network"] as described by the London Action Resource Centre.

Further reading

*" Cracking The System" (2008) - A zine about squats and social centres in Europe inspired by the april2008 initiative. Also available [http://zinelibrary.info/cracking-the-system online]
* [http://www.partyvibe.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=11654 The ELF Squat Experiment] - An experiment in squatting large buildings.
* "What's this place?" (2008) - A booklet with stories from radical social centres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Also available [http://socialcentrestories.wordpress.com/ online]

External links

* [http://centrum.mujinga.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Links&bl#_b_kraken_sociale_centrums_b_ List of social centres worldwide]
* [http://www.tmcrew.org/csa/csa_en.htm Selfmanaged Social Centers]
* [http://aia.mahost.org/pro_spaces.html Social Centers, Community Spaces, and Squats From "Italy's Cultural Underground" by Adam Bregman]
* [http://www.socialcentresnetwork.org.uk/ Social Centre Network (UK)]

ee also

*Autonomism
*Hacklab
*Infoshop
*Squatting